- How much time do you spend each week looking at screens? Tell us about how and when you use personal computers, tablets and smartphones.
- Who in your immediate family wears glasses? What do they wear them for?
- Do you wear glasses or contact lenses? If yes, what do you wear them for? How old were you when you started needing them? How much does it impact your daily life? If no, how good is your eyesight?
- Do you ever wear sunglasses or do you consider them too garish and feel too self-conscious?
- Glasses these days can be fashionable and consumers are willing to pay significant amounts of money on them. Eye surgery or contact lenses, equally, can be very expensive. How and where do you or would you buy glasses, contact lenses or eyewear? Does wearing glasses suit you? Why do you think that?
- These days, 90% of Asian schoolchildren are nearsighted. This includes children in Japan. Is this simply due to the explosion in the use of tablets and smartphones?
Question 1
I dread to think. I use a computer for work, for a sizeable chunk of the day. When I'm not working, I play video games, I watch movies and YouTube, I listen to podcasts, I read online, and I do a bit of programming. That means most of my leisure time is also spent in front of a screen, be it a computer, a smartphone, or a television. I'd say the vast majority of my waking hours is screentime.Question 2
Everyone, except my daughter. My mother and father have worn glasses for all of my life, I think. These days, they need them all the time as their eyesight has become poor over the years. My sister has only recently started using them though she only needs them when she is reading. My wife alternates between glasses and contact lenses, and has needed prescription eyewear since before we were dating. She is blind as a bat without them.Question 3
Technically, yes I need corrective eyewear. I was first prescribed them because I was getting headaches as my eyes were working too hard in school. I haven't worn my glasses in over twenty years though. I just don't feel like I need them anymore. So it doesn't really impact my daily life at all!Question 4
I often wear sunglasses when I am outdoors. My eyes are very sensitive to bright light.Question 5
I have bought glasses from an optician in the past. As I said above though, it has been quite some time since I last wore my glasses, meaning it has been a very long time since I bought glasses. I went to an outlet store in ATC in Osaka to buy my sunglasses.Question 6
I don't think so. I'm sure it hasn't helped to situation. However, if you look at any random movie from the 1980s that features a stock Japanese character, they are wearing glasses. It is such a strong image I would consider it a stereotype and one that has been around for a while. There is an element of truth to it though, I guess, given all of the people I have met over the years who wear glasses.Tough Vocabulary
| - English - | - Japanese - |
|---|---|
| I dread to think | 私は考えるのが怖い |
| a sizeable chunk | 大部分 |
| my waking hours | 私の起きている時間 |
| blind as a bat | 物が見えない |
| stock character | ストックキャラクター |
| stereotype | 固定観念 |
| an element of truth to it | 少なくとも部分的に正しい |